2023: Day 13: Confusing the Actor for the Character
"It is in this sense that some men come very near to God, and others remain exceedingly remote from Him, not in the sense of those who are deprived of vision, and believe that God occupies a place, which man can physically approach or from which he can recede. Examine this well, know it, and be content with it. The way which will bring you nearer to God has been clearly shown to you; walk in it, if you have the desire. On the other hand, there is a great danger in applying positive attributes to God. For it has been shown that every perfection we could imagine, even if existing in God in accordance with the opinion of those who assert the existence of attributes, would in reality not be of the same kind as that imagined by us, but would only be called by the same name, according to our explanation; it would in fact amount to a negation." Maimonides
When I was in high school, I was introduced to Shakespeare. In grade 10, it was Taming of the Shrew; In Grade 11, it was Macbeth and in Grade 12, it was Hamlet. Our teenage brains at the time couldn't translate, with much efficiency, the language that sixteen century writer was communicating in. In order to understand the stories we were expected to understand, we discovered "Coles Notes". (The American equivalent was called "Cliff Notes" but I'm Canadian... so we had "Coles Notes"). We couldn't pass a test or do a report if we just read the Coles Notes version of the Shakespeare play... we had to read the real thing. But Coles Notes helped us enter into the story and understand the characters more.
Because this isn't my first time through AFL, I have access to what I call the "Coles Notes" of AFL for me.
1. My own blog journey from the previous years. When I see who is the feature voice for the day, I go into my archives and see if I had some revelation from the previous years. I made a master list of the voices and it has helped me to navigate where each one shows up.
2. I am following along each week with Courtney Cantrell's book "Appetite for Antithesis". Courtney has opened up a window that brings fresh air into the reflections and a fresh perspective. I appreciate her work and the mental sweat she put into the Atheism for Lent material.
Once I have read through my old posts and through Courtney's chapter, I am ready to take on the reading again. Because a lot of them are the same excerpt that I read in previous years, the challenge is to find a new inspiration and a different nugget. That is why it's important to read what I wrote before so I'm not duplicating my thoughts. No need for that!
I might have gotten distracted this morning by wood carvings. (Thank you Courtney!)
“This reminds me of the anecdote—cited a variety of ways and attributed to a variety of people since the mid-1800s—that reads something like: to create a beautiful statue, all you have to do is chip and chisel away all the stone that doesn’t belong there (“chip away everything that doesn’t look like David”). What Maimonides seems to be saying is that to get at a beautiful “statue” of “God,” we chip and chisel away everything that doesn’t look like “God.”
He warns, though, that when we engage with “God” in this way, we have to have evidence that what we’re “chiseling away” truly is not one of the attributes of God. I can’t say “God isn’t pink” unless I can prove that “God” isn’t pink. Not sure how I’d go about that, but there we are." Courtney Cantrell
Excerpt From. Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice
When someone mentions carving, I don't think hammers and stone, I think chainsaws and wood. My home province of British Columbia introduced me to the art of chainsaw art. A town not far from where I was born in Northern B.C. called Chetwynd, hosts the Chetwynd International Chainsaw Carving Competition. People from around the world come to this little corner of Canada to "find their art pieces in sections of tree trunks". The town is filled with these art pieces and I hope to make a detour this May when I am in the area to check out the wooden wonders.
I am amazed that the artists can see their art just looking at a tree trunk. The picture is in their mind of what they want to reveal and they take their chainsaws and start cutting. It takes skill and years of practice to hone their craft.
Maybe that is the picture of my journey in the last few years. I have been chipping away. First with a "chainsaw" and then with a "carving knife". First big chunks fall away from the tree trunk of my story and then I get to chisel the details after the bulk of the material is gone. It's a process that is ongoing. Those statues in Chetwynd don't happen in a day. They take time and work. So does the process that I and so many find themselves in on this journey.
One more thing... I'm not a big evidence addict. For me, I strip away the things in my life that aren't working for me or don't make sense. I can hardly call myself one who finds evidence or even needs evidence. I just don't have the finances or the energy to make evidence the focus of my journey.
“If I cannot express or identify God in words, how can I ever find words to justify restraining and constraining the humans in my life? As Maimonides said, the “inscrutable oneness of God” will draw certain things out of me—and completely different things out of someone else. In this gap of what God isn’t...in this abyss...I have the freedom to be and become. The other person tarries in the same abyss, enjoying the same freedom—in an utterly different way than I do, which is no less valid.
If we allow it, this theopoetical language keeps us open to the unfathomable dimension of the Other in our daily lives. Maimonides insists that if we are to become people who do no harm, then it is essential for us to tarry in the gap—and do the work of letting it change us. Courtney Cantrell
Excerpt From Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice
